SQP Methods for Inverse Airfoil Design

by Carlos Orozco, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Cent, Pittsburgh, United States,
Omar Ghattas, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Cent, Pittsburgh, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Analysis and Computation

Abstract:

We consider inverse design problems of systems governed by suitable discretizations of a boundary value problem (BVP). We present and examine a Sequential Quadratic Programming (SQP) method tailored to such inverse problems. We employ a particular null space representation which exploits the structure of the constraint Jacobian. The resulting method avoids resolution of the nonlinear behavior for each design iterate. The method is used to solve an aerodynamic inverse design problem governed by nonlinear potential flow. Optimization problems with up to 90 shape design variables are solved. Numerical results demonstrate a substantial performance improvement over conventional methods.



Subject Headings: Computer programming | Nonlinear analysis | Boundary value problem | System analysis | Potential flow | Optimization models | Numerical methods

Services: Buy this book/Buy this article

 

Return to search